Recovered bullets from the snow

[26Charlie]

We had afew days of nice weather, with snow melting.

During the winter I amused myself by putting a target 25 yards out from the back porch in the snow, and shooting various small-game loads (groups of 5) from rifles. Loads were from a .223 with 50 gr. up to .30-06 with 150 gr. bullets; powder charges from 3.5 gr. Bullseye up to 8 gr. 700X. Angling downward into about a foot of snow, most of them were still there laying on the leaves this morning, in an area about 2 ft. by 5 ft. Most of the bullets were undamaged, unless one bullet hit another (3 out of the 89 recovered.)

First analysis shows gas cutting on bevel-base 150 gr. commercial-cast bullets, through the base band. No cutting on the home-made flat-base bullets, or gas checked bullets, although a number of bullets lost their GCs.

I had changed a scope on the .223, and adjusted the group to strike the same place on the target as the old scope, then fired one check shot with a full power jacketed HP target bullet. That bullet was there also, bent and flattened sideways a little, but not mushroomed or fragmented and not more than a few inches away from the cast bullets shot with 3.5 gr. Bullseye.

[JIMinPHX]

Most of the bullets were undamaged, unless one bullet hit another (3 out of the 89 recovered.)


You need to improve your groups. Robbin hood could split arrows. You should have more damaged boolits. :wink:

[357maximum]

I big pile of snow from the driveway can teach a feller alot about his loads.

BUT http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l80/357maximum/worthless_without_pics.gif

[Blammer]

just make sure you're car is not parked behind the big pile of loosely packed snow pile... :)

[357maximum]

just make sure you're car is not parked behind the big pile of loosely packed snow pile... :)

Is that the voice of experience talking?:bigsmyl2:

My wifes uncle killed a chevy truck the last night of muzzleloader season a few years back. Stuck it out the door popped her off in the dark, cleaned it..then went to bed. He overheated and seized her up on the way to work the next day. You do not go far with no radiator and no fan and no ability to pay attention to idiot lights apparently.

[thx997303]

I'm sorry but, How did he kill the truck?

It overheated, but was this caused by the muzzy somehow or did he just neglect to pay attention to the truck?

[Rick N Bama]

I can honestly say that I've never recovered a boolit or bullet from a pile of snow, & as far as that goes, don't know that I've ever shot into a pile of snow.............just what is a "Pile" of snow anyway:)

Rick

[sagacious]

First analysis shows gas cutting on bevel-base 150 gr. commercial-cast bullets, through the base band. No cutting on the home-made flat-base bullets, or gas checked bullets, although a number of bullets lost their GCs.
Were the flat-base bullets you cast softer than the commercial bevel-base bullets?

Recovering bullets from snow is a hoot. I have seen what you're describing many times-- more on the
'hard-cast' bullets than softer ones. It's another reason why a little softer is sometimes better.

Have fun shootin'! :drinks"

[danski26]

Snow was Dr. Mann's prefered medium for bullet recovery. Oiled sawdust was the second best method according to his experience.

[357maximum]

I'm sorry but, How did he kill the truck?

It overheated, but was this caused by the muzzy somehow or did he just neglect to pay attention to the truck?


Is that the voice of experience talking?:bigsmyl2:

You do not go far with no radiator and no fan and no ability to pay attention to idiot lights apparently.

He is one of "those guys" that cannot pay attention and change their oil when the engine is replaced cause it died, fixes the brakes when they stop...stopping...you know the type.

He shot a hole through his radiator, tore the shaft from the fan and bulged the hood, cracked the windshield when he discharged the maxiball. He never noticed any "amiss" until the thing gave up the ghost. His idiot light(oil pressure) was still flashing when I drug the truck to my house. If he would have been luckier the maxi would have taken out the ignition. Then he may have noticed it did not start......maybe.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
I have picked dozens of both cast & j bullets after the spring thaw.
more than 1/2 looked to have no damage except the rifling engraving.

[Rockydog]

357Max, If the "middle of the mitten" is central Wisconsin please let me know what county your uncle hunts in. I don't think I want to be in the woods with someone who shoots a gun into the night with no idea what's in his line of fire. His take on gun safety leaves much to be desired. RD

[Heavy lead]

357Max, If the "middle of the mitten" is central Wisconsin please let me know what county your uncle hunts in. I don't think I want to be in the woods with someone who shoots a gun into the night with no idea what's in his line of fire. His take on gun safety leaves much to be desired. RD


Wrong mitten, wrong side of the lake.

[Mk42gunner]

You need to improve your groups. Robbin hood could split arrows. You should have more damaged boolits. :wink:

I've done that, (not intentionally), it got expensive with aluminum arrows; I really don't want to do it with carbon fiber arrows.


I did recover some ingots from the melting snow pile; they had been left in my driveway when the ice/ snowstorm started, and were drug out of the way by my trail blade.


Robert

[303Guy]

357maximum, this uncle of yours - is he a blood relative or by marriage? :kidding: :mrgreen: :drinks:

[357maximum]

357Max, If the "middle of the mitten" is central Wisconsin please let me know what county your uncle hunts in. I don't think I want to be in the woods with someone who shoots a gun into the night with no idea what's in his line of fire. His take on gun safety leaves much to be desired. RD


Could not agree with you more........he had kids and dogs all over that place out in the middle of nowhere. No telling how bad it could have been.
The Middle of the MICHIGAN mitten. Since when did Wisconsin look like a mitten?. And the uncle belongs to my wife technically and lucky for all of us he no longer goes afield or has access to a firearm. I bunny hunted with him exactly one time years ago when SWMBO and I were dating, and never went with him again. He was scary in the daytime also.

[357maximum]

357maximum, this uncle of yours - is he a blood relative or by marriage? :kidding: :mrgreen: :drinks:

He is on my wife's city dweller side of the family. Most of em live in Detroilet.

[Crash_Corrigan]

We had a 87 Mustang. Cute as dickens. Wife drove it home one day and it was smoking. I went out the driveway and found the temp gauge pegged at hot. '

Steam everywhere. Busted heater hose on top of cylinder head. Told wife that if the red light goes on and the temp gauge shows hot you need to stop and turn off the engine. She said I needed to get home.

No damage to engine. Mechanic replaced hose. He shoulda replaced them both cuz the other hose let go the next month. Same scenario. Wife drove home with a temp gauge pegged and red light on. She had to get home.
'
Engine fried. Melted the cylinders to the block. Good boat anchor. As luck would have it there was an unused engine in the police garage out of a police cruiser. Car totalled but engine had only 4,000 miles on it. Paid $375 for engine. Spent another $800 modifyng the front end of the car to make the engine fit and get it installed.

Imagine a '87 Ford Mustang Convertible with a 351 Cleveland Police Interceptor engine. This thing could haul............eventually I went for a good set of Flowmaster Mufflers and it also began to sound like something else!

I would not let the wife drive this car at all. She never did understand why...too bad.

[Bob in Revelstoke]

I have been recovering bullets of all types from the snow for years. Now that spring is coming here in the Selkirk Mountains and the little snow we got this year is melting I am on my usual quest at the range. I picked up a couple of pounds today. Other shooters know my habits well and pick up bullets and leave them for me. The bullets are clean and in very good shape. I have been known at times to reload them and shoot them over again. Especially jacketed bullets. Some .45s have so many rifling marks that it has been a great temptation to send them to the idiots at one of the t.v. shows like CSI Crapola and see how they identify them. Jacketed bullets recovered are inspected for bends and I roll them down a glass sheet which shows if the are bent. 303 British tend to be expensive and I have had great success in re-using them. Gas checked lead boolits are kept separate and melted carefully.
This not only helps keep the range clean but gives me a reusable supply of lead.
I have always been amazed at the stopping power of snow. Even those with 338 Lapua shoulder breakers don't go very far in snow.
What the heck I do believe in recycling, especially when it saves me money

[wistlepig1]

Could we talk your Uncle to move to D.C.:redneck::bigsmyl2:

[303Guy]

... 303 British tend to be expensive and I have had great success in re-using them.303 Brits also tend to have slightly enlarged bores at the chamber end and elongated leads due to the highly erosive ammo (cordite burns hot). This makes them ideal for paper patching, in my opinion (totally unbiased, of course! :mrgreen: )

[machinisttx]

We had a 87 Mustang. Cute as dickens. Wife drove it home one day and it was smoking. I went out the driveway and found the temp gauge pegged at hot. '

Steam everywhere. Busted heater hose on top of cylinder head. Told wife that if the red light goes on and the temp gauge shows hot you need to stop and turn off the engine. She said I needed to get home.

No damage to engine. Mechanic replaced hose. He shoulda replaced them both cuz the other hose let go the next month. Same scenario. Wife drove home with a temp gauge pegged and red light on. She had to get home.
'
Engine fried. Melted the cylinders to the block. Good boat anchor. As luck would have it there was an unused engine in the police garage out of a police cruiser. Car totalled but engine had only 4,000 miles on it. Paid $375 for engine. Spent another $800 modifyng the front end of the car to make the engine fit and get it installed.

Imagine a '87 Ford Mustang Convertible with a 351 Cleveland Police Interceptor engine. This thing could haul............eventually I went for a good set of Flowmaster Mufflers and it also began to sound like something else!

I would not let the wife drive this car at all. She never did understand why...too bad.

My wife would have been walking....

I think she learned not to do things like that after tearing a transmission line and not telling me about it. We were going to town(in her car) with me driving and the transmission slipping something awful. I pulled in my aunt's driveway, which is about 300 yards up the road from ours, and discovered the torn line. She apparently had decided to drive through the ditch to go around someone and high centered at some point. I was neither polite nor kind when informing her that it could have been a $2500 bad decision.

[26Charlie]

sagacious - Yes indeed the bevel-base were commercial hard-cast, and my alloy is mixed range scrap and tire weights, which I would call "medium-soft", of course a subjective term.

I had a powder measure set up for 3.5 of Bullseye, and tried the charge with the 84 gr. RCBS RN pistol bullet in a number of rifles - .30-06, 7.5 mm Swiss Schmidt-Rubins (1911 long rifle, 1911 short rifle, 1911 cadet single-shot, and 2 K-31s) and a couple of .300 Savages (M99 Savage and a Remington 722).

The iron-sighted rifles mostly shot the light load to the sights at 25 yards, the scoped rifles mostly did not. All the rifles were sighted to hit point-of-aim at 100 yards with a 180 gr. load at about 1650 fps. The military rifles require a sight setting of 400 or 500 meters to do this.

There was gas blow-back from some of the rounds in the S-R 1911 Infantry long rifle due to poor obturation, so I changed to the 115 gr. Lyman 3118 FP PB, same charge, which cured the problem.

[Bwana]

Reminds me of back in highschool '70-'73. I used to shoot at an area along side the highway just north of Fox, AK. Everyone shot there. In the spring I picked up hundreds of bullets that only had the rifling marks and reloaded the 357, 44, and 30 cal bullets. Had one heck of a collection, everything from 22 Hornet to 458 Win.

[Multigunner]

Many years ago when I got my first Enfield I took it to a farm a friend had leased to try it out.
I fired a shoot from the kneeling position a bit too close to the front grill of his little import car, and the muzzle blast shattered the thin plastic grill as if someone had kicked it in.

The Cadets Manual of 1914 shows a number of photos of bullets fired from Springfield 03 rifles after a set number of rounds. These were the original round nosed heavy ball loads of 1903 with high notro content powder that eroded bores worse than cordite, since no over charge card was used.
The bullets were all recovered from snow banks to prevent damage other than that caused by gas blowby from obscurring the test results.

[Greenhorn44]

Snow shooting is a really good way to recover boolits. did this alot in kansas. Didnt reload back then. wanted to make necklaces outta them. Silly young bucks we were.

[ddixie884]

Elmer Kieth wrote, in Sixguns, of recovering Bullets from snow. He said a lot could be learned from these relatively undamaged bullets. It doesn't snow enough here to be of any use.

[sagacious]

I shot a bunch of old Cor-Bon 45+p 230gr hollowpoint ammo into a big wind-blown snowbank. The snow wasn't slushy, but was still heavy and wet enough to open those hollowpoints into big picture-perfect mushrooms. I was a little surprised that there was enough resistance to cause full expansion.

[Boondocker]

I have recovered a lot of slugs in the thaw. I usually shot my hand guns and smokepoles into one of the monster piles i plow up, and they are usually in a nice pile waiting for the pot. Wife says I am a cheap #%%#%%. I am just frugal and self sufficient. :lovebooli